Chapter 5
Arlene pushed her plate away, having barely eaten the shepherd’s pie her mother had made. Pauline, dish towel in hand, emerged from the kitchen and looked aghast.
“What’s the matter? It’s no good? I made your favorite.” Her mother’s brow dripped with sweat, and a damp dishcloth hung at her waist, the telltale signs of how she’d labored over their weekly family dinner each Sunday. Arlene had only missed a handful in her lifetime. Mostly when she had been in Reno with Joan.
Arlene sighed. “I’m just not hungry, Mama. Send it down the street to Bill and the kids.”
Her mother clicked her tongue in frustration. “No, Nancy will be insulted. She and Bill and the boys are eating with her parents tonight. They’ll think that I think her parents can’t feed them properly.”
“Well, can they?” Arlene gave her a look.
A twinkle entered her mother’s eye. “No, but I’ll not be telling them that either.” Arlene couldn’t help but laugh. She reached out and plunged her fork into the shepherd’s pie, taking a small bite. It tasted a little better. But her heart still wasn’t with her plate.
Her mother wiped her hands on her apron. “What’s wrong, Lena? Tomorrow is a big day for you. You need your strength.”
“I have a lot on my mind.” Arlene looked at the dining table, the one her mother had brought with her from Ireland as part of her dowry. She rubbed her hand over the wood, taking in places where the grain had smoothed to a lighter color from its dark cherry. Thousands of memories over thousands of meals had been made right here at this table. Hers, her parents, and the ones of the generations before her.
But tonight, she wished she wasn’t so good at remembering. That the scar tissue in her heart hadn’t seared with fresh hurt when Don surprised her on the soundstage earlier that evening. She’d vowed never to cry another tear over Don Lamont. But that was before he’d been named the star of her directorial debut—before he’d quite literally waltzed back into her life, full of bluster and presumptions.
She cast her eyes at her father’s chair, steadfast in its place at the table, but now empty. Not just for tonight, but every night until the end of time. Her mother followed the direction of her vision and pulled up a chair on the other side of her, wrapping her arm around Arlene. Arlene laid her head against her mother’s shoulder. It reminded her of being a little girl and feeling as if nothing bad could happen as long as she was wrapped in her mother’s embrace.
“I know you miss him, a stór, ” Pauline said, stroking her fingers through her daughter’s hair. Arlene blinked back tears at the sound of the Gaelic words that meant “my treasure.” Her father had always reserved them solely for her. “I do too. But he would be so proud of you.”
Arlene sighed. “He would. I know it.” A memory of her excitedly telling her father on the trolley ride home from seeing Cinderella how she was going to direct pictures filled her with fresh hurt. Of course you will, a stór , he’d said, kissing her on the forehead. Never questioning his little girl’s dreams for a moment.
As much as it pained her that her father wasn’t here to see her realize those dreams, it wasn’t his empty chair that had her disinterested in her favorite supper.
Her mother patted her hand. “You will be magnificent. I know it.” Arlene didn’t answer and hugged her mother tighter. “You’re nervous to see him again, aren’t you?” Somehow mothers always knew.
“Who?”
“Ach, don’t play dumb with me, child. Don. It’s been a long time.”
Arlene sat up and tangled her hands in her lap. “It has, but that doesn’t have to mean anything. I’m the director. He’s the star. We don’t have to be anything but that.”
“You could never be only that,” her mother replied, giving her a knowing look.
Arlene massaged her temples with her forefingers and thumbs. “We can, Mama. We have to be. Besides, he’s dating his dance partner, Eleanor Lester. The one in all those newspaper clippings you have on the refrigerator. The blond with the wide grin. Even if he wasn’t, he’s long since made it clear that he could never want anything more from me, from us. When Papa had his—”
The word attack died in her mouth. Three years and she still couldn’t talk about it without crying. She swallowed and recovered herself. She could not be a teary mess on set tomorrow. She needed to be firm, confident. A queen ruling her country. “Anyway, Don never wrote once after he left. He never looked back. So, why should we?”
Her mother rolled her eyes. “My daughter, always with a flair for the dramatic.”
“Mama, I am very levelheaded and you know it.”
Her mother waved her hand as if to dismiss Arlene’s response. “You are. Always. Except when it comes to one subject—Don Lazzarini. You think I never noticed the way you looked at him? The hours you spent in that backyard together when you should’ve been doing your homework? I’m not blind, Lena.”
“That was ten years ago. More.”
“And? What have you loved in those ten years since he left?”
“My work, Mama. You, Bill, Papa, the boys.”
“Don loves his work too. You are not so different, you and him.” Her mother smacked the dish towel against the edge of the table for emphasis. “You both had big dreams and you’ve gone after them. Like your father and I always knew you would.”
“Don abandoned us, Mama.” Arlene couldn’t stop her voice from rising, and she stood from her chair. “I would never do that.”
Arlene couldn’t talk about this anymore. She turned on her heel and went into the kitchen, plunging her hands into the warm, soapy water in the sink and searching for something to wash in its depths. She pulled out a potato masher and rinsed it, grabbing a dish towel from the drawer to dry it.
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, a leanbh. ”
Arlene set the potato masher and the dish towel to the side and placed her hands on the edge of the sink, letting the weight of her frustration flow into the green tiles. She could feel a knot of stress tightening between her shoulders. “He and I are not the same, Mama,” she whispered. She was startled to feel a tear drop from her eye and fall into the warm water in the sink.
Her mother spoke from the doorway. “My child, I love you. Your father loved you. But I worry. I worry because you and Don are alike, whether you see that or not. You give all of yourselves to the things you love. And I worry that you will give your heart to the wrong person. To someone who has already disappointed you. You have such a beautiful soul, a leanbh, but you are too free with your heart. You get that from your father.”
Arlene dabbed at her eyes with the discarded dish towel and turned to face her mother. Pauline Morgan was leaning against the doorframe that led from the dining room to the kitchen and smiling. Her face was radiant with love for her. It made Arlene want to cry harder.
“It was what I loved most about Patrick,” her mother added. Arlene gave her mother a watery smile. She missed hearing his name in this house. “But,” her mother continued, “it means you are easily hurt—and I know this film will be hard for you. No matter how you fight against it. There is too much history there, too much water under the bridge.”
“There is, and that’s why you needn’t worry about my heart.” Arlene’s voice warbled, still choked with the grief she carried after losing her father. But she swallowed and the courage of her convictions turned her heart to steel. “I can’t forgive Don. For leaving us behind, for forgetting us. I know better than to ever give my heart to him again. He doesn’t deserve it. I can’t love him. Not the way I used to.”
Her mother gave her a knowing look. “Ah, well, it would be a shame if you couldn’t at least be friends.”
Arlene shook her head. “I don’t think I can risk even that.”
She opened her arms and gestured for her mother to come to her. They embraced, and Arlene was startled at how frail her mother felt in her arms, the papery skin hanging off her bones.
Arlene could rest her chin on the top of her mother’s head. When had this happened? Pauline Morgan had always been so strong, so solid. The foundation of their family. Patrick had been the Morgan family’s heart, but Pauline was its rock. Arlene kissed the top of her mother’s head and tried to dismiss her worry. “All it can ever be is water under the bridge. It has to be. This job is too important for it to be anything else.”
She paused, deciding whether to tell her mother what had really turned her off her dinner tonight. “Besides, I’ve seen him already.” Her mother looked up at her, curiosity and concern mingling in her gaze. “Before he came here, he showed up while I was walking the soundstage.”
She waited for her mother to launch into a stream of questions about what he’d been like, if he looked the same, and a thousand other things she’d probably wondered in the decade since Don had moved to New York. But Pauline Morgan merely squeezed Arlene a little tighter. “Then, you’ve already faced your hardest test.”
Arlene wanted to believe that. Wanted to believe that nothing could penetrate the wall she’d built around her heart when it came to Don Lamont. That seeing him again was the biggest hurdle and she’d leapt over it. She would stay the course, be professional. Not unkind, but not friendly. She and Don would make a successful film together, and then he’d go back to New York, out of her life. Again. But this time it wouldn’t hurt. Because she wouldn’t let it.
Her mother lifted her hands to Arlene’s face, cupping her cheeks. “My daughter, the director.”
Arlene smiled for real then. “Can you believe it? It’s real. Finally.”
“All those hours you spent in that yard miming a camera, pretending to set up a shot, I never doubted for a second you’d get here.”
“Well, I did—and this opportunity is still fragile. So, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that this picture isn’t my only chance. I’m going to do it for me and for any other little girls pretending to wield a camera in their backyards. No one, not even Don Lamont, is going to mess this up.”
Her mother patted her cheek. “How did I get so lucky? To have a daughter who is beautiful, that is a blessing. But to have one who is beautiful, smart, and fearsome… That is a true prize.”
Arlene wrapped her arms tighter around her mother’s waist and hugged her with the all the strength and affection she could muster. Her parents’ unwavering belief in her was such a gift. It was something so many people did not have. Not Joan. Not even Don.
She found her strength here, in the arms of her mother and the warmth of this kitchen, the heart of their home. She was ready. To face Don. To prove to Harry Evets his faith in her was not misplaced. To show the world what a woman with a movie camera was made of.